Because
by Roses of Sharon
Summary: Reasons why it isn't love. And one overwhelming reason why it is. SasuSaku.


Love is Patient

Disclaimer: I don't own _Naruto_.

Summary: Reasons why it isn't love. And one overwhelming reason why it is. SasuSaku.

Author's Notes: Well, apparently, twenty-three percent of people think I should write more SasuSaku. According to my poll, anyways. So this is it, and I hope you like it! (And if you haven't voted, go to my profile page _right now _and vote!)

Because

_Love is Patient. _

"Sakura," he growled through the door. "Why are you taking so long?" She huffed, and he could _feel _her glare through an inch of steel. "I'm almost done!" she said, tightly. "It's completely your fault if we're late, because, a, you asked me _yesterday _if I wanted to go to the charity ball; and, b, you took me out _today _to get my dress, hair, and nails done." He was trying to bite back the retort on his lips, when she opened the door and he nearly stumbled. "I'm done, alright? Gawd, men…" She was down the hall before she turned to see his dumbfounded expression. She hid a triumphant grin; it was so worth having sat in that room for hours pretending to get ready.

_Love is Kind._

"You are such a… a _bastard!_" she screamed at him, hair tumbling free of its pins. "How could you say something like that, in front of all those people? I'm never, ever going to… _ugh_." She reached down, jerking off her new stilettos, "You," she seethed, "are the most infuriating, most chauvinistic, most… _ugh_." I still cannot believe that you… just, _ugh_." She paused, glaring up at him, "Aren't you going to respond at _all?_" He looked down at her, gaze finally moving from the wall he was burning a hole through, "You are not going to listen." "Damn right I won't," she growled, jerking off her dress and climbing into bed. He joined her, lifting the blankets on the other side. She fumed for a few minutes, as he switched off the lights, and then lay there sleeplessly for another few hours. It was funny – _not!_ – that she couldn't sleep without him anymore. Finally, she turned to Sasuke, whispering his name. When he didn't respond, she turned and pressed her face into his back, relaxing. He smiled, eyes wide open.

_It does not envy. _

"Beni-kun!" she said, giggled. "Don't say such things! You know," she added, glancing around conspiratorially, "that he wouldn't like it." The male beside her snorted, "Come on, Sakura-chan; it's not as if you're married – hell, you're not even dating! Just come to this one wedding with me, please?" She giggled, again, patting him on the arm, "I have to work that night, anyways. Maybe next time?" He pouted at her, and then walked off, waving at her over his shoulder, "I'm holding you to that, Saku-chan!" Sakura smiled and waved back before turning – and nearly smashing her nose into Sasuke's chest. "Sasuke-kun!" she said, surprised. His red gaze held hers, "Who was that?" "Oh!" she said, "That was just Beni. He works as a receptionist sometimes, in between missions. He just wanted to ask me to go to his cousin's wedding with him, but I had to work that day," she continued, huffing. He glared, and responded, enunciating more clearly than she had thought possible, "You would not have gone with him anyways." She gaped, furiously, and he turned and left. She spun and walked in the opposite direction, but not before allowing herself one victorious smirk and tossing over her shoulder, "His family doesn't approve of his boyfriend."

_It does not boast. _

Sasuke and Naruto looked up as Sakura edged in between them, sitting on her customary stool. "Hey, Sakura-chan, why are you late?" the blonde ninja called. She smiled, "Oh, nothing much… Tsunade-shishou wanted to talk to me about stuff. Apparently, there's a position in ANBU she wanted me to fill. I agreed, of course. You guys don't mind, do you? Because, you know, I thought you might, since I got in before you, but…" She shrugged, artlessly, and mentally gave herself a pat on the back for a great performance as she watched their faces.

_It is not proud._

"Sakura," he said. She smiled at him, walking two steps ahead. Ironic, really, that she should be the one ahead this time; a position of power – she decided whether she would keep going or wait for him. She turned, letting her hair sweep over her shoulder, to give him one long glance from the corner of her eye; turned back to give him a nice view of her back. He sighed; she would never offer. And he refused to beg.

_It is not self-serving. _

She meets him again under the shadow of Sakura trees, in the dark. It is fitting, he thinks. She slaps him and throws him in the river, and he does nothing to stop her. He knows he deserves it, and he climbs out and grabs the crate of medical supplies and pays her in kisses and soft words and empty promises. "I'll be back," he says. "Itachi-" she flinches and his words trail off. "You really are helping me, you know," he tells her, as if that should somehow lessen the guilt that she is aiding a traitor. She nods, turns away to look at the falling petals. "The cherry blossoms are dying," she murmurs, finally, and he snatches at the undertone, the little indications that she is not speaking of flowers. He leaves before false dawn the next day, and she lies cold and alone in the Uchiha Estate. She snuggles in his blankets, breathing in his scent, and tries to forget that he's using her.

_It is not easily angered._

The words are barely out of his mouth before he regrets it, but he doesn't step down, doesn't apologize, just stands there and watches as those green eyes fill with furious tears and those pink lips tremble with suppressed sobs. "Fine," she says, in little gasps between sobs. "Fine, if you want it… so damn much… I'll leave you. And I'll never come back…" It is not a threat, he realizes as she turns and runs. It's a promise. She's finally leaving him. It doesn't feel as good as he once thought it would, and he wishes that, just this once, he could have controlled his temper.

_It keeps no record of wrongs._

"You," she seethes, "are such a bastard, Uchiha Sasuke." He winces, but concentrates on keeping her in her seat. Sure, she had great alcohol tolerance, but no one could take as much alcohol as she had just imbibed without at least _some _loss of control. "I mean it," she adds, and he tries very hard not to drag her home. Or kiss her. "…And you left me on a freakin' bench!" she continues. "Right after I confessed, like, undying love for you, too! And don't think I'm forgiven you for that, either. Then you have to run off to join your precious _Orochimaru-sama_, that bastard snake pedophile, and then…" Sasuke glares at his pink-haired companion, and then turns the ruby gaze at the men staring at her. Abruptly, he stands, grabbing her compliant hand and leading her out. Right outside the door, he gives in to the other demand – only to shut her up, of course.

_Love does not delight in evil;_

He kills the man slowly, by pieces. No chidori for him, no lightning-fast, split-second double-slash across the throat; not, even, a merciful thrust into the heart. No. This man's death must be slow, it must be painful, and it must be remembered. Whirling Sharingan eyes look deep into the one green orb remaining in the man's head, and Sasuke carefully dislocates his shoulder. The man shudders, screams, and Sasuke is pleased. By the time Hunter-nins come, Sasuke's mask – removed to explain to the nukenin the reason for his death – is carefully back in place. No one hurts Sakura, he thinks. Not without a death wish.

_But rejoices in the truth._

"We all know he just wants to get in your pants," Ino said lazily, waving a cigarette. Sakura sighed. It was a Monday – Ino's one day for a cigarette, in commemoration of Asuma-sensei or her spectacularly failed relationship with Shikamaru, Sakura never knew. As a result, not only was she feeling skanky – for example, wearing a skin-tight dress with a slit that showed exactly how little underwear adorned her butt in the bar with the highest average of over-amorous potential suitors, according to said blonde princess – but she was also more than just vaguely amused with Sakura's sex life. Or, as she saw it, the lack thereof. Sakura sighed, and flapped her hand at her best friend, "Yeah, whatever," she said. "I'll enjoy the ride." Ino narrows her eyes at her friend, and barely misses the tell-tale signs of a girl who just got laid.

_It always protects._

"Watanabe Ami, I presume?" he asks, hands stuck in his pockets. She brushes the lank hair out of her tired eyes, looks up at him. "Uchiha Sasuke," she says. _No longer Sasuke-kun_, he notes. _Good._ "What are you doing here?" she asks. He shrugs, more a movement of his shoulder blades than his shoulders, and then he turns his head to look down the street. "In the neighborhood," he says. She snorts, and he notes that she looks twenty years older than her age – a few years older than Sakura, he recalls. "You're here about dear _Sakura-chan_," she says. He tenses, and she knows she's hit gold. They stand in silence for a moment, before she suddenly breaks it, "You needn't worry about her." Sasuke turns one dark, solemn eye on her, barely visible through the bangs. She hums, and then she gestures with one hand toward a house three houses down, "They're not so bad." A feral smile, another pause, and then, "She can take them." Sakura walks out of the building then, waving goodbye cheerfully to the occupants. "Sasuke-kun!" she calls, rushing over. He sees the flash of jealousy in Watanabe's eyes, and he keeps the responding smile to himself. He takes a few steps toward her, and she grabs onto his arm, "Sasuke-kun, I told you, you always scare the people here!" He grunts, shrugs, and walks away. Ami watches them go, and _wishes so bad _that she had someone to watch out for her. (She knows, just as well, that Sasuke was here to watch her.)

_Always trusts,_

"Its fine if you don't love me anymore, Sasuke-kun," she says out of the blue one day. He looks up from his paper, startled, and she takes it as an invitation to continue. "I'll understand if you want to break up with me. Though," she says, and pauses, "I suppose I should really break up with you before you can do that." "Oh," he says, and goes back to his paper. She takes this as confirmation, "You see, Sasuke-kun, I've come to a conclusion. You want to hear it?" He grunts, and she says, "I've decided that there's someone else." She laughs, bright and metallic and fake, and he takes one quick, concerned glance at her over his newspaper. "You're never here, Sasuke-kun," she says. "You're never, ever here. Always on missions, you say, but you can't be, Tsunade-shishou wouldn't give you that many missions, so… just tell me who she is and break up with me, alright?" He stands and walks toward her, and she tenses and _hopes _that he's going to say something or do something, but when her eyes open, he is past her and on the couch, and she can _feel _him sleeping. "Sasuke," she whispers (_mourns the loss of their love_). Three hours later, she breaks up with him. Three months later, they are married.

_Always hopes,_

He is never late. That is what she thinks as she watches the horizon and road, waiting for the caravan to return. "Sasuke," she whispers, and the word is bittersweet on her tongue. He is never late, except now. She scans the forest, the road, the sky; and then she lays a hand on her swollen stomach, feeling the baby kick. He should be home by now. HE should have been home a week ago. She scans the sky again, keeps her eye on the messenger pigeon winging its way into the village. Who, she wonders, it that going to? It is when it drops a message right outside her window that she finally realizes that it is for her. Her hand darts out, and the message is carried in her hand when she reaches back. For a moment, she stares at it, and then the tears begin their trails down her cheeks. A twist of tea from Rain Country. Exactly what she asked him for. And for the first time in a week, Haruno Sakura dares to hope for hope.

_And always perseveres._

IT hurts so much, and she wants to just give in, just tell them what they wan tto know. Then she clamps her jaw shut around a muffled scream, and she turns burning green eyes on her captors. "You want the Sharingan?" she asks. "Torturing me won't get you the Sharingan. It may just get you Kyuubi," she adds, in between gasps and burning trails of tears, "but I don't think you're prepared for that." The man in front of her smiles, sadistic and, admittedly, beautiful. "You don't know what we're ready for." A searing line trails down her leg, and she manages to merge words into the scream torn from her lips, "They'll come." The man leans over her, breath whispering against her ear. "They aren't coming for you. They've left you." "They'll come," she bites out. It is all she has allowed herself to think for days, hours, lifetimes. She grits her teeth. She can outlast this. And they will come for her.

_Love never fails. _

He holds her in his arms that night, and traces the scars on her back and _apologizes_, and she smiles up at him, and then she says, "I believe in you, Uchiha Sasuke. I know you'll always come for me."


End file.
